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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598190">Peace</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocket_infinity/pseuds/pocket_infinity'>pocket_infinity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>King's Fall [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hollow Knight (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen, Heavy Angst, Suicide, thats technically debatable but im gonna say canonical nonetheless</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:27:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocket_infinity/pseuds/pocket_infinity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If your world were to end, everything you'd worked for and built collapsing around you, would you not crave peace?</p>
<p>If your kingdom had fallen, your wife left you, your friends in a coma, and your offspring long-dead, would you not be ready for the end?</p>
<p>Even a god would crave that, no?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>King's Fall [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>oops i slipped and wrote more angst have fuuuuuunnnnnnnnn :))</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Pale King found himself sighing as he stared out over his palace—what was left of it, anyways. The abrupt shift to the dream realm had left it… mostly intact, but sections had collapsed entirely, taking some of his wife’s plants with them. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment at the thought of her reaction, not out of fear of what it would or would not be, but a longing for the fact that it would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> at all. But he’d driven her away, and she wasn’t coming back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He drew himself up again, straightening his posture and taking in a deep breath. Crying in public was hardly regal of him—but then again, what part of him was still regal? His once-luminant wings were tucked away somewhere in the ancient basin, his robes were growing more and more tattered by the day, his hands were stained black, stretching up his forearms, and his glow had dimmed out almost entirely. Quite the spitting image of a great and powerful king.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d thought, perhaps, that after severing his own wings, something would change, but nothing had. His next effort was to have all signs of the Hollow Knight’s existence scrubbed from the kingdom so that he could just forget, if only for a moment; that didn’t work, either. And then </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> came back, laughing at him from beyond the prison he’d worked so hard to build, sacrificed so much to create. Foreign rulers, his friends, his wife’s love, his own </span>
  <em>
    <span>children,</span>
  </em>
  <span> all thrown at a problem only for it to crop up again the moment he thought he was finished.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he moved his palace to the dream realm. Maybe with some distance, he figured, he could begin anew, start to recover. It turned out to be just another lie, told to keep him strung along some unforeseeable path (and he would know; he’d tried to </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> hard to see it). Ultimately, though, all he’d done was move from being surrounded by the sins of his past to being alone with nothing of consequence. Just one albatross for another.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could reincarnate again, perhaps, and go seek new territory for himself once again—but what for? So he could lose it again and find himself back at this exact point? And even if he did, how could he just </span>
  <em>
    <span>go on,</span>
  </em>
  <span> knowing what was left here? Knowing that his wife writhed in sorrow, that his friends lie in a coma, that his daughter hated him and wandered his dying, stasis-bound kingdom alone, that he’d sent tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of his children to their death before even being given a chance, was he just supposed to move on?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No. For all his foolishness and trickery, Grimm had taught the Pale King at least one thing: the wheel keeps turning. Always. The cycle repeats endlessly until a piece falls away, and it breaks. He would end this loop before it got a chance to begin again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He raised the chalice in his lower left hand, swirling it gently and watching the not-quite-liquid void swish in the glass. It looked almost simulated, with how slowly its ripples moved and how well it clung to itself, refusing to tumble out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Go back to the front of the throne room,” he said to the Kingsmould behind him without turning around. “Stay there until you break and collapse.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only sign of recognition was the clinking of armor and the disappearance of a tunneling stare, leaving just him, his chalice, and his palace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hallownest…” he said, staring out at the silver tones and white roots, “fare well, my sweet symphony.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With that, he lifted the glass to his mouth and tilted it back, forcing himself to not clamp his jaw closed as void flowed into his mouth. He tossed the empty chalice off the balcony, turning back towards his throne as the burn began to set in. He clutched his robes as the void ate away at his mouth and tongue, at first, before progressing down towards the top of his throat as he began to walk towards his seat of power. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Despite how used to the enteral hunger of the void he’d gotten, it still managed to yank a whine from his chest as he made the first few steps. He took a breath—which turned out to be a bad idea, as the void got an entrance into his lungs with the air—and continued on, his legs already beginning to quiver. Any existing sensation within his mouth had long been drowned out as the chilling devour of void made its way down his throat and into the rest of his body, drifting into his bloodstream en masse alongside his lungs. He wheezed in another breath and continued on, just a few short steps away from the throne.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His legs gave out on him, sending him tumbling to the ground, and he responded by reaching up to grab the seat of his throne and pull until he came to its base, finally pausing for breath. He exhaled, pausing to find his legs dyed mostly black. His chest, similarly, was turning that direction, the King’s Brand on his chest already completely dark. He wondered, idly, if that had happened to his face. Part of him hoped not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With another wheeze, he gripped the side of his throne and pulled himself up, grasping the other side of the seat once his top pair of shoulders cleared the edge. He clambered into it, bit by bit, before letting out a calmed sigh as his head hung down.</span>
</p>
<p><span>“Peace,” he’d said, back at the start of it all. “For peace, there is no cost too great.” Well, if nothing else, he’d have peace, albeit at the cost of… well, </span><em><span>him.</span></em> <em><span>Ah, but then again, of course,</span></em><span> he thought with what little of a sneer he could still make with his face...</span></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No cost too great…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>… </span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>uhhhhh hoped you enjoyed my writing tumblr is endless-pocket-writing byeeeeeee</p></blockquote></div></div>
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